Should People be able to sell their Kidneys?

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today"

I Gave Away a Kidney. Would You Sell One?

Two policies would address the shortfall of kidneys in the U.S.: instituting a priority-scoring system for donors and their kin and paying donors.

Israel pioneered the former in 2012. Prioritizing organ allocation by donor status—a system that economist Alex Tabarrok termed "no give, no take"—incentivized people to register as organ donors. It also removed a hurdle to living donation: The incentive to abstain because of a hypothetical (What if my son needs a kidney?) went away since the policy guarantees that a donor's kin will be prioritized in the event that they need a transplant. The results? Both living and deceased donations have gone up, and the number of people who have died on the waitlist fell by 30% between 2010 and 2013.

To obviate the kidney shortage, we should heed the recommendation of Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker and others by making it legal to compensate donors.

These seem like pretty good common sense suggestions to me.

Currently, the National Organ Transplant Act bans the "sale" of any human organs in the U.S. Those who oppose compensation object to its ramifications for donors and society. They argue that the poor will be exploited, and that people should give out of the goodness of their hearts. But these lofty sentiments ignore the fact that 18 transplant candidates die each day. As the legal scholar Richard Epstein has put it: "Only a bioethicist could prefer a world in which we have 1,000 altruists per annum and over 6,500 excess deaths over one in which we have no altruists and no excess deaths."

So sell kidneys so more people can live, or continue the current system and have more people die?

 

Both. Give if you want to give; Sell if you want to sell (though that would have to be one huge check for me to pony up a kidney to a would be buyer.)

 

Yeah I would think I would want some pretty big bucks too, but right now everyone along the supply chain makes money except for the donor.

 

Sure, but if I am having to pay for a kidney, I am going to want to see their CV, credit report, complete health history, and some photos to see whether or not they are as good looking as me cause I don't want some ugly alcoholic kidney from some malaria infested country in me.

I would be hard pressed to donate to anyone outside my family unless they were pulling it out of me immediately after I coded.

 

I am 100% Against any of these organ transplants.
There is too much money involved and too much opportunity for criminal organ harvesting.
Some places have a law that anyone that dies in an accident becomes an involuntary donor..And it has happened that as surgeons were about to take organs the "deceased" woke up. So now instead of pulling out all the stops to save people they are over-anxious to cut out their organs for $$$. And those surgeons make a big fee for doing the operation too.

That and the fact that many of the donees do not live very long. I personally knew such a person. He had infection after infection, was of course on those immune suppressant drugs which led to this problem. He lived miserably for 2 years. His sister had given him one of her kidneys. So not she is with one and heaven help her if she has a problem with that one.

So giving or selling you are short-changing yourself.

 

Wait, so you oppose any organ transplants?

 

I find the idea of selling organs morally repugnent, but that's my own bias....If people can voluntarily donate a kidney, a piece of liver or bone marrow for free, selling their parts should be their own business as well....they are taking a personal risk doing so why not....

 

Whole organs where the Donor must be dead, yes I adamantly oppose this.

 

Errr why?

I mean, I didn't think that was controversial at all.

 

YES.

Everyone makes money off of the donation of an organ except the donor and the donors family. The doctors, hospital, transport company, insurance, all make money. The recipient benefits with a new organ and a better and/or extended life.

A living donor assumes the risk of the surgery, the loss of an organ or piece of an organ, the cost of lost work and reduced activity, and sometimes some of the medical costs for post surgery care. The donor receives no financial reward.

In the case of a dead donor, the donor's family receives nothing at all.

Pay the donor.

 

You don't see the possibilities for criminal activity. Where there is lots of money to be made there will be opportunist to take any advantage - usually criminal.
[video=youtube;DHxNtrfvXeQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHxNtrfvXeQ[/video]

http://www.havocscope.com/tag/organ-trafficking/

Illegal Organ Trafficking Poses A Global Problem

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/illegal-organ-trafficking_n_244686.html

10 Truly Shocking Facts About Organ Trafficking

http://www.onlinenursingprograms.net/10-truly-shocking-facts-about-organ-trafficking/

And as I said - Where is the incentive for doctors with dollar signs in their eyes to save accident victims when they can simply pronounce them dead and proceed to harvest their organs?
I'm unable to find the story where this happened to a lady who woke up as the surgeon cut into her..

 

America pays for blood donors - Australia doesn't
America has a higher rate of contamination of blood as people who are living risky lives (i.e. drug takers) donate for money

Australia has a cleaner blood bank but shorter supplies

Give and take and the real bottom line is to get people to do the right thing voluntarily

 

People who think that this happens in the industrialised world forget there is more people involved than just the medical staff. Your nursing staff are your best advocates for quality care.

But why bother it is CHEAP to buy kidneys overseas - India has a thriving industry as does SE Asia. Mind you - you have to be lucky enough to be compatible and in many cases the real issue is rejection

 

More on organ harvesting, ripping of donors and selling for big bucks.
http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/fraud/israel/news.php?q=1251737213

Also to consider: How many of these transplants are really necessary?
Are people being given transplants that do not need them?
Follow the money$$$$$$$

 

No - they are not being given transplants where they do not need them because organ failure is organ failure

 

I'm not following your point. The surgeon doesn't make any more or less money if the donor was paid or not. Everyone but the donor already gets paid now and we don't have willy nilly organ transplants to generate revenue in the US.

 

I wasn't able to find any information that the US blood supply was worse than Australia's, but it's possible. However most blood donation in the US isn't paid for. However blood plasma is paid for. In fact in college, I used to sell my blood plasma for cash. There was a company right across the street from the University. Ahhh, nothing like being woozy with fresh cash@

 

Pretty much without exception, I think you should be able to sell or rent any part of your body you want to, even if it kills you. What I do not agree with is me DONATING parts of my body and someone else profiting from them.

 

But the surgeon does make a hefty fee for his work doesn't he?

How do you know we don't have willy-nilly organ transplants? That's idealistic thinking, but in the real world there is a lot of corruption driven by the all-mighty dollar. I can't believe that there are so many people with kidney failure to the point of needing new kidneys or anything else.

 

Actually the ones who make most money are the ENT and plastics guys (How do you hide a $10 bill from a plastic surgeon - you can't!!) because they do a lot of short operations so can do more per day. A liver transplant on the other hand is likely to last 4 - 8 hours

 

It's not idealistic thinking. It would be very difficult for a doctor to order a kidney transplant for everyone who comes into his office for the sniffles. The hospital reviews those decisions, then they are reviewed again by the insurance companies, which usually have a separate department that researches and reviews transplants. I don't think you are familiar with the "real world" at all.

 

I don't think you read the info on the links I posted.

If there is such scrupulous over-site as you describe don't you think they would question the ready availability of these organs?

 

I did look at those links, but they were largely irrelevant since it was about organ trafficking in the third world. Those donor's sure weren't paid!

You can't waltz into a US hospital for a Kidney transplant with your own kidney, slip the doctor a sawbuck, and expect him to use the kidney you brought with you in a cooler.

 

I think its a two edged sword; we could have the possiblitly where we evolve into a society where if you have money you can buy a kidney but if you have no money, sorry, you have to die. The way it is now, everyone regardless of wealth has an equal chance; if it were to become big business, then I think we'd be separating society into two distinct groups of people of the have's and the have-not's.

 

Then I think you missed the point of the article, which was to increase the supply of transplant-able kidneys by offering cash to donors. That would be a society that would evolve to have fewer people on dialysis and more people with kidneys.